James Lindsay

American mathematician and cultural critic who became the most systematic public analyst of 'woke' ideology — co-author of the Grievance Studies Affair (2018) and founder of New Discourses.

The Grievance Studies Affair (with Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluckrose): Lindsay and colleagues submitted 20 hoax papers to peer-reviewed gender, race, and sexuality studies journals — getting 7 accepted, including a paper about dog rape in parks as a lens for rape culture. The affair demonstrated that certain academic fields would accept papers that sounded ideologically correct regardless of empirical quality. New Discourses: Lindsay then built a systematic analytical project treating 'woke' ideology — critical theory, critical race theory, queer theory, intersectionality — as a coherent intellectual tradition descended from Marxism and postmodernism, mapping its internal logic. Controversial: critics argue he misrepresents the scholarship he analyzes; defenders argue he exposes its internal inconsistencies.